The programme was originally mooted as a sort of musical demonstration against the barriers to cultural exchange which musicians have seen erected in recent years. We had hoped to undertake a tour which would start in Europe before moving through Tamburlaine’s domains in Central Asia and on to East Asia. If visa complexities made this tricky, war in Europe has made it impossible. We can only range across the continent in our imaginations, aided by Handel’s music.

Juxtaposed with instrumental pieces, we present a mixture of the effortlessly charming and melodic – Acis’s pastoral longing or ‘Un momento di contento’ from Alcina  – with some of the darkest and most dramatic music Handel ever wrote. Castrati often played the heroes in Handel’s Italian operas, but for the great Modenese tenor Francesco Borosini he wrote two extraordinary and anguished roles:  the defeated emperor Bajazet, who takes his own life and bids farewell to his daughter; and the tyrannical usurper Grimoaldo, whose conscience begins to stir. A bracing alternative aria for Sesto from Giulio Cesare reminds us that tenors were sometimes brought in to replace absent mezzos, male or female. In the case of the final aria, ‘Scherza Infida’ from Ariodante I have simply stolen from the higher octave one of the greatest pieces Handel ever wrote.